Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast on Zamir White, QB Room, Reason for Optimism and Mu

HENDERSON0N, Nev.—The Las Vegas Raiders have officially completed their first OTA and mandatory mini-camps of the 2024 season, and all attention is on the NFL training camp to be held in Costa Mesa, Calif. .

Under the leadership of head coach Antonio Pierce, the Silver and Black came together as a team, from the coaching staff to the players. Their collective optimism and confidence is soaring, and the bar for their performance, if possible, has been raised.

In our latest episode of the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast, we explore RB Zamir White’s potential, the QB room battle, reasons for optimism for 2024 and much more.

You can watch the entire podcast below:

Coach Antonio Pierce spoke to the media after the mandatory mini-camp, and here is a brief transcript of his comments.

Q: Yesterday Christian Wilkins talked about how Maxx Crosby is raising his level of play. I wonder how Maxx’s gas tank is challenging Thayer Munford and what you’ve seen of his development with Maxx on the other side from him. Coach Pierce: “It’s great competition every day to go against Maxx (Crosby) and Christian (Wilkins) out there. If I could just talk a little bit about Maxx and Christian, I think the best thing and the biggest thing for the Raiders we see are two alpha competitors who compete in everything And this goes back to the previous question about the quarterback competition These guys compete in everything, first one off the rock,. first to win the individual routine, first to run from the gym to the first field. I mean, it’s all a competition. So what’s going on with our team? , it was the Maxx Crosby show, fanboy central waving. It was Maxx and then the band. Well, now it’s Maxx Crosby – well, you know what? across the field. What you see on the other side of the ball is guys competing. I talked about it in every phase one, phase two, phase three, minicamp – competition. When we arrive at training camp, it’s competition. It’s Raiders vs. Raiders until we get to the first week of the preseason and the first week of the regular season. The Raiders aren’t going to be best friends when we get to training camp, it’s not going to be pretty, it’s going to be ugly, I’m sure it’s going to be violent. And then we will love each other and we will do it against someone else. But Maxx Crosby taking on (Thayer) Munford will only make Munford a better player. Every day you see a guy tackling it. Munford can’t have a bad day, he can’t have a bad reputation because I don’t slow Maxx Crosby down, I don’t. I told our staff I wouldn’t do it. I’m not going to do it. Munford will see this in real life when we face other very good defensive ends in the National Football League. So to get those reps every day, give or take 50-60 shots per workout. I mean, I hope it accelerates the development and growth with him and makes us a better team. ” Las Vegas Raiders Transcript 6.13.24 Q: We already know what Davante Adams can do, it’s been documented, but when you look at the rest of this room, how good can this receiver room be for Raiders this year? Coach Pierce: “There are two guys I’m going to highlight and obviously the obvious ones, but one guy really stood out this offseason, Tre Tucker – different guy. He looks different, acts different, runs different, catches the ball differently. Don’t look at size, don’t talk about it. Watch him play. He’s the greatest guy in the world. He had a heck of an offseason, he came back right after the offseason program, the Super Bowl, he got here and started working and he was here every day. Blazer, we know speed. But everything we talked about working on, he took it to another level, and you can see the look in his eyes of a confident player, of a guy who just wants to constantly improve. He’s pushing and the guy right next to him, I get it because you have to do it, Davante and those guys are kind of getting pushed into the background, Jakobi. Jakobi is that guy. When you say I need a dog, Jakobi is that dog, Jakobi is an alpha, Jakobi is fearless, Jakobi probably works as hard as any player on our team. You saw it last year, his commitment to the running game speaks volumes because he could easily be a 100 reception receiver and a 1,000 yard receiver, but it’s all these other things, it’s those back blocks, those are those hits on the D side, the linebacker, getting his nose bloody, rolling up his sleeves, flexing on the guys, setting the tone. His energy and his presence, he may not say much and you know him, he’s quite very skilled, very skillful and light in his words, but when he speaks you better listen because he has some substance behind it. So those two guys really made a really good jump for us. It’s really good to see because we’re not going to win this game with one person. We will win this game as a collective group consisting of the core wide receivers, tight end, running back and quarterback, it’s not just about one guy. And we’re going to win or lose on that, and these guys really believe in the team aspect and it takes all of us to get there. You know, I’ve always talked about our superheroes putting on their capes. I told the guys today, ‘Hey, these superheroes need some other guys to put on extra capes.’ We need a few more cloaks in this room. And it’s okay for Big Mike (Michael Mayer) to intervene. Brock Bowers, I don’t care about a rookie. We’ll leave when he’s ready to go. Alex Mattison, Zamir White, Ameer (Abdullah); we have a lot of guys this offseason that have really enjoyed the competitive role and embraced that sense of ownership like I’m not going to wait for something to happen, I’m going to make it happen. And that’s the difference I see in our team as a whole.